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It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine

It's Psychedelic Baby is an independent, music magazine. We are covering alternative, underground, non-commercial and non-mainstream artists in variety of shapes and genres. Exclusive interviews, reviews and articles. A place where musicians can express themselves. We serve an international readership.

The Great Society was but a shadow of moment in time that seems to have lasted forever because of one person, and that person was Grace Slick. Taking their name from the domestic agenda of President Johnson, which resembled that of Roosevelt’s New Deal, and first used during a speech at Ohio University, the name itself had become a flashpoint during the turbulent early 60’s, reflecting new more inclusive values and attitudes. With a backstory that’s as impressive as the music, The Great Society found themselves on the verge of a record deal based solely on the strength of the then entitled song “Someone to Love,” though would be changed to “Somebody to Love” when the Jefferson Airplane recorded it, with their manager Sylvester Stewart (later known as Sly Stone) quitting after the B-Side “Free Advice” took over fifty takes for the band to deem useable. Oddly enough, The Great Society found themselves opening for the Jefferson Airplane during those early years, with Grace jumping ship to front the Airplane, recording Surrealistic Pillow, which contained the songs “White Rabbit,” along with “Somebody To Love,” and the rest has become psychedelic rock history.

The always strange and intriguing Bearsuit delivers a split release from electronic sound collagists Yuuya Kuno (Swamp Sounds) and Douglas Wallace (Uncle Pop). The former is a frenetic, white-knuckled ride through an electronic funhouse with live wires serpentining across your path at every twist and turn. ‘Skull Disco’ is sure to crowd the dancefloors, but would also be right at home soundtracking the next Xbox game sensation. As its title suggests, ‘Moon Circle’ is more ethereal and soothing – think of it as a bathroom break from the previous hi-NRG intensity, but Kuno doesn’t pull any punches with his final offering, ‘Houndstooth’, a glitchyfrightmare of a sonic assault on all senses that’ll leave you breathless (take that, Jerry Lee!)

Over the years Jesus & Mary Chain have fallen in and out of fashion, though with the release of Damage and Joy, we find the sonic duo still rolling on and dishing out material that’s as relevant today as it ever was.

Just in time for Record Store Day 2017, Luna’s most revered and legendary album will be released as a remastered double disc vinyl set of only 3500 copies world wide. This is the album Rolling Stone Magazine listed as one of the best albums of the 1990s, saying that Luna was without a doubt the best band too many dumb-ass Americans have never heard of.

For the first time, the four parts of The Book Of AM, recorded between 1978 and 2012, are put together as one project, thanks to Open Your Eyes, Belgium’s finest purveyor of Psychedelic Rock and Acid Folk acts since 2008 and home of Cosmic Trip Machine, Will Z., Book Of AM, Meditations Overdrive, Black Moon Tape and many others...

The Book Of AM is a unique combination of recordings and artwork, a testament of the hippie scene which flourished in the Baleric islands during the 70’s. Known to record collectors and psych/folk/prog music aficionados, this multicultural project, formed in the island of Mallorca, recorded a beautiful album which has gained cult status as years passed by.

Amazing fuzzed out and completely improvisational band from Australia, Frozen Planet.... 1969 already released several albums but their latest was also issued on vinyl by HeadSpin Records. It was sold out pretty quickly and HeadSpin Records announced another run on white vinyl. Band is part of Pepper Shaker Records, run by its band’s members and their releases include lot’s of other projects by same member, including Mother Mars, The Travelling Museum... If you’re into heavy psych sound from 1969 you’re in for a treat.

Paul and Frank Attard had been previously playing in the stoner-doom band, Mother Mars and Lachlan Paine was playing in the Canberra heavy rock trio, Looking Glass. When did you decide that you wanted to start writing and performing your own music as a trio?

Back in 2012 we organised to jam with Lachlan who plays bass in The Looking Glass. It all started as just something we wanted to do to see what happens and we were all curious to hear how we would sound together. Our very first jam we recorded and it was eventually released as our first Self Titled album in late 2013. That jam and our music still is completely improvised so there’s never any need to write any of our music.

Bledi Boraku (Bledar Boraku) is an Albanian musician and composer. He recently released a brand new album. Tha is experimental mixture of ambient and electronics. Below is an exclusive premiere of his album.

Sensations’ Fix and Franco Falsini stood out of the Italian prog rock scene of the 1970 with a more Avant-kraut-space sound making them an unicum in this prolific years. Vision’s Fugitives will be first time repressed since its original release in 1977 and with an entire new mix by Franco Falsini.

After releasing a 1st EP in 2016 which was warmly welcomed by French and foreign critics, the band left their garage and trampled stages with their boots across France then Europe with bands like Yeti Lane, Charle’s Howl, Astrodome and Death Valley Girls.

This album has been quite an obscurity already by the time of its release. Recorded by 19 year old Mark Fry for an Italian sub label of RCA it presented a beautifully naive kind of psychedelic folk similar to what The Incredible String Band laid down at the same time just a bit more straight forwarded.

“Whatever fell from the cosmic sky, it landed in our home town Berlin. And is ready to take your mind on a beautiful journey. Bringing Earthless-level heavy psych into the local scene! Taking you into the endless universe, the lonely desert and the depth of the ocean as relaxing sounds and moody melodies will go along with you on this journey. Do you smell it? It's time for another take off!”

Debut album from 1972 by Ertlif, one of the leading Swiss progressive / psychedelic bands from the 1970s. Now expanded to a double set, including a whole extra album of previously unreleased homemade recordings from 1971 plus a rare compilation only track from 1973. UK sounding doomy & atmospheric psychedelic hard-rock and proto-prog sounds with lot of Hammond organ, hard guitar, occasional Mellotron and English vocals.

Got myself a record deal with Columbia, it ain’t all that much, but it will help payin’ the rent, and you needn’t worry about me eating. Things are goin’ pretty good these days. New York seemed big at first, but it’s really just a bunch of small towns all strung out together. Woody and I have been spending alot of time together, he really digs my tunes. I’m enclosing a copy of my record for you, though there’s no need for you to play it, just thought you’d like the picture is all. Bob

There is something about third albums that show the pinnacle of a band’s talent. Tom Petty had Damn The Torpedoes, Bruce Springsteen had Born To Run, and Liquid Sound Company has Acid Music For Acid People. Most disciples of the psychedelic music of the late 1960’s try to emulate that sound, and often fail to present something new. Liquid Sound Company continues to showcase new and exciting ways to push the cosmic boundaries of music.

Formed in 2013, Sydney-based trio Comacozer is an instrumental heavy psychedelic space rock band. They released two albums on HeadSpin Records so far and are working on their third. Here’s our interview with their guitarist, Rick Burke.

Comacozer is a few years old project. How did you guys come together and what is the concept behind the band?

I Rick (guitars) came across Andrew (drums) from an online music blog. We got talking about having a jam and what kind of music we wanted to make. From the first jam we had together we clicked pretty magically & knew we were on the same page musically, he brought in Rich (bass) to our next jam, which instantly just worked and completed the formula. The concept of this band was to cross our influences, making dark, psychedelic music with a doom/stoner vibe, most importantly to get together jam and have fun.

With a convergence of differing musical styles Lorean Quintanill and Alberto Gonzalez have engaged in a soundscape of sorts that is not only suitable for a more cosmopolitan flavor, but for an expression that reflects those same values, with lyrics that shimmer, delivered in both English and Spanish.

Huellkurven is an online sound poetry magazine and a series of events dedicated to sound poetry, poésie sonore, lautpoesie, noise poetry, sound-text composition, auditive poesie and audio poetry. They’re based in Vienna and released five excellent magazines/compilations by now.

Aside for the music ... this album holds profound memories for me. First I was at the Fillmore when these recordings were laid down, and what a super charged night that was ... truly an event to be remembered and talked about for years.

Now listen ... the Allman Brothers are really good, make no mistake about it, and they certainly put out an awful lot of quality material after this release ... but Live At The Fillmore East was recorded during their height, when everything clicked night after night after night. The band had that ‘spark,’ that ‘something’ that people always refer to, there was a joy in their playing, there was a joy in their performing ... and live was the way to hear this band first and foremost. They mixed and meshed Blues with Rock, flavoring it all with a nice southern funk. The extended jams are relentless, capturing a moment that still feels like it’s hanging in the air. This album was the ‘climax,’ the ‘peak,’ this was the best part of the trip.

While the first Crosby, Stills and Nash album was a sensational hit, there were many who were hoping that both the vocals and guitar work of Neil Young would bring a darker mystery to this outing, rather than the sublime sweetness from the CS&N album. And while Neil did a masterful job, he wasn’t able to overshadow his numerous band mates, to convince them into changing the style and tenor that they and the record industry were not willing to step away from, hence we would not get super group songs in the style of “Down By The River” or “When You Dance.” The track “Country Girl” gave me great hope that the production might swing into high gear with Young at the helm, creating a complexity that only he can bring to the table, yet even that paled in comparison to his solo projects.

Hailing from Copenhagen, Denmark eclectic rock band Jesus On Heroine evolve around dreamy psychedelia, noise-rock and drone-based shoegaze. The group released their debut album entitled Tremolo Eastern Salvation in 2013 and now the time has come for the release of the video of the first single “Musasabi” of the second album Ardhanarishvara.

Electric Octopus are back with a bright bit of intoxication, one that sounds very clear crisp and centered, riding on a lazy meandering current of spacious unconcern … not so much going through the motions, simply emotionally easy, with a heartfelt sense of hushed tender afterglow satisfaction.

One of the most unique musicians of the last few decades decided to release an unexpected album after almost 30 years of hibernation. Since the late 1970s they released some of the most unique and exceptional music with albums like Play Struvé & Sneff, Songs for Swinging Larvae, Arabic Yodelling, The Elbow Is Taboo and they also collaborated with The Residents on Title in Limbo. Klanggalerie recently issued their brand new album Gurdy Hurding and they also pleasantly surprised us with reissuing all of their catalogue in wonderful quality.

Gurdy Hurding is exceptional work and I was lucky enough to interview both, Brian “Renaldo” Poole and David “Ted The Loaf” Janssen, not just about their latest album, but we covered their whole career.

How did the concept of “Renaldo & The Loaf” come to realisation?

There was a long gestation period before what eventually became RATL. We met at school around 1969 – we found we shared a mutual love of Tyrannosaurus Rex (not T Rex, which didn’t exist at the time). We actually encountered each other in the art room, we were both drawing Tyrannosaurus Rex inspired pieces and so we struck up a conversation.

From the beginning we were interested in writing our own songs and recording them. The influence of Tyrannosaurus Rex probably convinced us to stay as just a duo – something that has remained throughout.

Other things we were listening to at the time included The Incredible String Band, Third Ear Band, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and quite a lot of folk music.

We did play 3 gigs in that early phase, around 1972. Those gigs were very small gatherings, maybe 25 people at most, held at a local youth club. The first was very Tyrannosaurus Rex influenced, us sitting on the floor with guitars and bongo drums - the second a little more experimental and improvised and the third, the strangest of the three. For the third gig we had a ring modulator and used a backing tape on one song - this song was called “Island” which had nothing to do with the King Crimson track, but did involve some backwards singing.

Arguably this is one of the finest first albums to have ever come down the pike, an album that’s not only matched by its originality, its contribution to the music scene, but for its innovation and style. Are You Experienced? broke all of the molds, yet for the most part remained true to the radio formatted times of the day, with only “Third Stone From The Sun” venturing in at close to the seven minute mark, and like planets alining, foreshadowing things about to come.

First official reissue ever! Includes two bonus tracks and extended linernotes! Gatefold Sleeve. It’s 1967 and Kali Bahlu felt that it was time to “simply speak the truth as it comes to me from the other side”. Her believes that we’re all tapped in a cosmic game, and her overall adorable wisdomly folly that she preserved into her old days, could lead to the assumption that she’s been the grandmother of characters like Luna Lovegood.

... a place where musicians can express themselves ...

Psychedelic Folk issue available

Dedicated to British psychedelic folk. New issue of printed version projected from the well-known, leading psych on-line site It’s Psychedelic Baby. After the previous issue covering exclusively the US psychedelic folk scene (IPB 002, 2016), this new issue covers the 1960s and 1970s British folk scene, with exclusive interviews of members from acts such as Fresh Maggots, Comus, Mellow Candle, Dr Strangely Strange, Spirogyra, C.O.B., Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Pererin, Courtyard Music Group, Magic Carpet, Sunforest, Oberon, etc. Also includes a few pages of record reviews. Cover by Justin Jackley.